Advent Group (UK) - Support Group for Priests & Religious since 1969

BBC Radio 4 Sunday Programme interview

Amazon Synod will decide on married priesthood in the West

Created: 02 April 201902 April 2019

SAO PAULO, March 27, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil said in an interview that the coming Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region may decide whether to ordain married men to the priesthood in order to serve the vast tropical region.

Cardinal Hummes told Terra that for the “lack of priests,” 70 percent of the people in the nine countries covering the Amazonian region do not receive the sacraments of the Church. The bishops from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela will meet at the Vatican in October “to identify new paths for the evangelization of God’s people in that region," especially indigenous peoples who are “often forgotten and without the prospect of a serene future.” Preservation of the natural environment, deforestation, poverty, and the formation of clergy are also topics for discussion by the bishops, who represent more than 34 million people of majority-Catholic countries covering some 18.5 million acres.

Cardinal Hummes (75) was professed a priest of the Franciscan order in 1958 and was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope John Paul II in 2001. An outspoken proponent of social justice, he has often appeared alongside socialists such as Luiz Lula da Silva, who later became president of Brazil.

Telegraph article on the back of BBC show Fleabag

I remember the moment I first set eyes on Jan. It was 1986, and I was a 31-year-old Catholic priest at a church in Kendal, Cumbria. She was a member of the congregation, who ran aerobics classes for parishioners. She knocked on the presbytery door to hand over some money and there she was: a pretty 26-year-old gazing up at me. "Father, this is for you:' she said, handing over the collection. I did not realise at the time what a huge impact she would have on my life.

I had known that I wanted to be a priest from the age of 13. Raised in a Catholic family, I packed myself off as a teenager to Underley Hall boarding school, ajunior seminary for boys. Ordained in Blackpool at the age of 25, I knew that celibacy was part of the package. It was discussed openly and we were all acutely aware that by dedicating our lives to God, we were forgoing any possibility of a wife and children. But talking about it is very different from living it.

After meeting Jan, we quickly developed a close, platonic friendship, and I always looked forward to seeing her at parish walks and barbecues. Before long, the two of us were taking trips to cafés and the cinema. She was chatty, intelligent and very attractive, and I enjoyed our long chats about faith and theology. At some point - I'm not exactly sure when - we developed feelings for each other.